


you looking at me, looking at you

by orphan_account



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Jewish character / references, M/M, Mike has PTSD, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Stan's POV, impl. internalized homophobia, not beta read we die like lesbians (who cannot die), stan has ocd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 10:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21160208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Taking his hand off of the steering wheel, he puts it on the stick shift with his palm facing upwards in silent invitation. Stan finds his mouth becoming dry, watching the other’s chest rise and fall as he tries to control his own breathing. He wants desperately to console him, to kiss the scarred skin that’s hidden beneath the bomber jacket and white shirt. Stan wants to tell Mike it’ll be okay, but his knuckles are bloody and he didn’t close his door three times (Three for the Three Sons and Three for the Three Fathers, his life is divided into three, three, three) so he stares at his open palm in bewilderment and fear.A late-night drive on the back roads of Derry, Maine





	you looking at me, looking at you

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from You Lookin' At Me, Lookin' At You - Ozzy Osbourne

Mike Hanlon’s car smells like hay and firewood, which Stanley Uris is finding increasingly comforting the more and more they do these late-night drives on the backroads of Derry. He stares at his bloodied knuckles, intertwined with one another on his lap.  
Blood is a disgusting thing, just as bad as the sewer water under the Neibolt house. It plagues his thoughts more and more since the Oath. The scar on his hand itches and when he feels anything he attempts to rip open his skin with his fingernails to free it like the canary he let loose from a cage after rehabilitating it. His nose bleeds when the baseball hits him, his skin bursts when he pops that zit too early and his knees open when his baseball pants aren’t tucked in right and ride up when he slides to home plate. He thinks about blood a lot, which is why Mike drives him around. 

“You up for talking about it, Stanny?” Mike asks, glancing over at the other with gentle eyes. He’s wearing the bomber jacket Stan got him a year ago. It still fits him nicely and it’s still very well kept - the implications make his heart skyrocket. 

“I-” Such things as these are always so hard. The words make his mouth taste like copper as his tongue slides across his teeth, weighed down like lead. But with Mike, the weight is lifted a bit and the copper taste becomes fainter. Mike always asks because he likes to fix things, Stan always answers because he wants to be fixed.  
“Just- these, these _thoughts._ They won’t _stop._ I-I….” He hates how pitiful his voice sounds, cracking with grief and frustration. “I don’t _want_ to hurt people. It makes me sick. I feel like Cain.” 

“And what about you, Stan? You only ever seem to take it out on yourself.” 

“Pass,” Stan huffs, curling up into himself and picking at his cuticles. 

He sees Mike’s nose crinkle a bit from the corner of his vision. “You used your passes already.” 

It’s a simple system, Stan gets 3 ‘question-passes’ a month. He can save them or use them all. It’s a system Stan knows is kind of flimsy because Mike would never push for an answer he knew he didn’t want to give - like when he saw him eyeing Allen Soliz on the baseball team after just talking about how cute a girl in his class was a day or two ago. He prays on Sabbath nights that Mike doesn’t notice how he looks at him when his back is turned - longing after something like Eve the Apple. Though Mike is anything but sin, but the epitome of something holy. Something always out of his reach, even as the son of a Rabbi, even though he closes doors 3 times every time. 

“I don’t know,” He sighs, giving in and dropping the stubborn stalling. Should this had been with anyone, he would’ve gone quiet or said something to pick a small fight or argument so he could go hide in his room in isolation but Mike has such a soft and calming aura about him like the hearth of a fire. “It’s scary, but it helps. I guess.” 

Mike lets out a long sigh, his shoulders sagging from their rigid posture and his hands loosening their grip on the steering wheel. Stan feels guilt for having called him so late at night. He could’ve driven himself or called Richie, who’s sleep schedule is just as abhorrent as his. 

The other clears his throat, slowing the car at a stop sign that no one pays attention to because no one drives the mountain roads of Derry. Taking his hand off of the steering wheel, he puts it on the stick shift with his palm facing upwards in silent invitation. Stan finds his mouth becoming dry, watching the other’s chest rise and fall as he tries to control his own breathing. He wants desperately to console him, to kiss the scarred skin that’s hidden beneath the bomber jacket and white shirt. Stan wants to tell Mike it’ll be okay, but his knuckles are bloody and he didn’t close his door three times (Three for the Three Sons and Three for the Three Fathers, his life is divided into three, three, three) so he stares at his open palm in bewilderment and fear. Too scared to assume, too scared to want from someone who has so little to give to someone who needs so much. He’ll cut Mike’s palm like the glass he shoved into everyone’s palm with a wordless promise to G-d and whatever else. He’s broken and jagged, like a haphazard puzzle piece.

But then Mike looks at him, really looks at him and pleads with Stan with his brown eyes that hold the sun and the stars. Stan shakily and gently places his own hand upon Mike’s, feeling warmth and electricity pulse through him. Not like the time he touched the electric barbed wire at Mr. Johnson’s house because Richie dared him to, but something that makes him feel jittery yet _alive._ Stan feels sick, needing to roll down the window but too fearful to let all the love out and have it swept away in the wind and leave him lonely, yearning in his room with nothing but the paper cranes he makes out of sticky notes and his bruised copy of the Torah to console him. He doesn’t realize he’s shaking till Mike gently nudges his arm with his own, looking at him with a soft asymmetrical smile. But fear lurks in those eyes, the same fear and something more. If they were caught, it could mean death and Stan doesn’t know where G-d would send him. Mike will be raised and probably live forever after the day of judgment, maybe even stay with the holy beings. He’d fit right in. 

Stan sniffs, then exhales shakily and gives Mike a soft smile. He stares at their interlocked hands before slowly undoing them to bring his trembling fingers to the string around his wrist which holds a silver upsidedown hand with an eye staring at him knowingly in the middle. Placing in gently in Mike’s palm, pushing it down slightly and closing his fingers around it. 

Mike looks at him, flustered and confused (which admittedly is a rather adorable look). He chuckles a bit, still holding the other’s hands in both his own.   
“To protect you,” Stan explains, rubbing his thumb against the side of Mike’s hand. “From things like the evil eye.”   
The other blinks owlishly, calculating the gesture carefully. “Things like Bowers?” And they both know what it means, even hidden in the back roads of Derry in a car with the Hamesh hand and the forest to shield them Bowers always finds them. And this? A bisexual Jew and a gay Black boy? His rage would eat them whole. But, maybe, their love could part the seas so they can be freed, run away together with a dove to guide them and he won’t pick his skin till it breaks anymore and Mike won’t have to live in constant fear anymore.

“Yes,” He whispers, to himself, to Mike and to G-d, “Things like Bowers, too.” 

\-- 

When Mike kisses him on Maple St. at 11:33 pm it feels like coming home, like sitting in tall grass and feeling the warmth of the sun. Which he thinks is rather fitting, as Mike is the closest thing to the sun any human could ever hope to be - shining brightly, proudly. But unlike the sun Stan knows Mike would never burn him, would never turn his skin so red he itches it till he bleeds. 

“I love you,” Mike breathes, pressing their foreheads together. _Of course he says it first,_ Stan thinks, _Mike only knows to love with the whole of him_

_”Ikh libe ir aoykh,_” Stan smiles, rubbing his thumb against the side of Mike’s face, “I love you too.” He kisses him two more times.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments are appreciated!!
> 
> here's my carrd for more places to find me: https://sapphoites.carrd.co/  
my @ on twt is @DykeToziers - feel free to DM me and yell at me


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